TO J R Oppenheimei- FROMJ S 7 riri ingC • llNCLASSrED B • - d 3 its VERIFIED UNCLASSIFIED Kistiakowsky »» «- - ' - wu r SUBJECT My Activities During Your Absence any - ' ' 'jH fpenCCYRELEAaABls Peaimgg with the Washington Offjggt -i ' «— ISS 1 There has been much publicity in connection with the Japanese broadcasts about the continuing injury from radioactivity at Hiroshima and Nagasaki The General called up several people Bacher Hempleman to get information on the subject A teletype was dispatched to him making certain recommendations which he turned down This teletype is in your files but the answer was made over the phone to me I got rather concerned about the matter and asked Hempleman and others to prepare a memorandum a copy which is attached herewith for your use if desired I had the intention of sending it to the General but in the meantime he issued ant official statement to the press that there could be no injuries from radioactivity This is rather final and on the basis of the attached mffioorandua looks as if he stuck his neck out a mile Finally on Saturday he called Colonel Se«aan asking for approval the Project that a group of reporters under our supervision visit Trinity site just to look siround no photographs I consulted with Bacher and with hi approval teletyped back that we would be glad to have such a party provided competent scientists from this Project accompany it The latter part seems to be very Important and I believe either you yourself or somebody like Bacher who can talk well rather than only Bai gbridge or Hempleman both of whom are rather Incoherent accompany the reporters As of today we have not received any reply stating the time of the visit 2 In regard to construction on the Project teletypes were sentColonel jointlyTyler by Colonel Seeman myself to General and also by requesting theand authorization for theGroves so-calied UNCLASSIFIED — CL' S'---' PER DOO r cai S B B -2 w UkuLf ii u £D Expanslon No 4 at S-Slte to cost about $150 000 00 and emphasizing that such construction is indispensable if production is to be con tinued at S-Site beyond the next 60 days but that such construction in no way changed our firm opinion that as soon as possible S-Slte should be scrapped and that a completely new plant built We also recommended that imniedlate steps be taken to approach either DuPont or Hercules explosives departments before they had a chance to dismiss the personnel with the idea of engaging them as a design group to design the new plant with our assistance the authorisation for actual construction naturally coming from the permanent authority that is to be set up To the latter proposal we had an answer from Major Derry that we were not to budge and that the General himself will enter into such negotiations when and if 3 Vv n a round-about way I learned that the General has issued orders that the entire destination crew will stand by until the occupation of Japan is well advanced We got into the matter merely on the question as to whether the observation crew Alvarez and com pany will be returned earlier than the rest We Bradbury and I with concurrence of Bacher first recommended against but after receiving a iBore eaqplioit teletype concurred in such return I am CM O not infomed as to what is the final disposition of the men but believe that some of them have already returned to the Project 1 4« I l Ad no ooBBOunicatlons whatsoever on the subject of general rv policies of the Project Neither have I had anything to do with the present status of the Sandia Station CM situation may be rather complicated by the announconent of President As regards to the former the Truman that the state of hostilities may not be ended until next May Dflillaga wltU ColoBel Stewart 1 Under this heading there is only one item worth mentioning but this one has taken very much of my time UNCLASSIFIED '' '' - It is t iHi stion of PEVCO r -4 hours and wages You will find in your files a copy of the teletype which was sent to Stewart by me after consultation with everybody I could locate on the Project There followed a series of thoroughly unsatisfactory telephone conversations Finally Stewart came here and we had a meeting the minutes of which are attached I consider the results a great victory and it is due almost 100 per cent to a firm and an effective intervention by Colonel Seeman Unfortunately Clausen was no help whatever He presents altogether a picture of utter apathy and Indifference He even came to me today with the suggestion that the proposed correlation of the Tech Area Jobs with Civil Service will be too much work for the Personnel Department and that therefore we should start dickering with Stewart for the retention of our old and haphazard salary classification system with increases to compensate for loss of income due to shorter working hours I have vigorously objected to this and have insisted that they go ahead with the proposed re-classification which will be complicated by the abaiAce of Major Newcomb due to injuries received by him Saturday night My frank opinion is that unless you ride Clausen hard he will not do the job quickly and we may get into the same nasty situation in which the Los Angeles office finds Itself now AffT meeting here Colonel Stewart peremptorily re- duced the working hours of that office to 44 uid reduced the salaries correspondingly Internal Dealings on the Prolectt 1 Very little of importance has happened here I have made a number of requests to Captain Jones about relaxations in security rules none of i ich amount to changes in policy but are merely intended to conform the present security rulings with the new status of the Project as an admitted atomic bomb laboratory UNCLASSIFIED j n i i ••ii IM 1 1' So far action eUSSlFlCATlON CANCELlB mQOCREVIEWJAH i n L LIJ P UNCLASSIFIED has come only on two points the permission for relatives and visitors to live in Santa Fe and permission for some Tech Area employes to live off this site The latter concerns mainly the Spanish-American girls who work on detonators 2 There has been no report from the SED Coaiaittee appointed by you although I happen to know that it has a number of recommendations some of which look sensible and even possible to carry out It is rather unfortunate that this committee did not consider the WAC»3 and I think that the recommendations made by the committee should be made uniform in so far as practicable to apply to WAC's as well 3 The college instruction committee ran into trouble during Bethels absence because of vigorous protests by D P Site and S-Site supervisors that attendance at locations may ruin their schedule There is almost unaiiijBOUs opinion that lectures should be free to everybody or there should be no lectures at all I for one am very strongly for it and could not participate in the scheme otherwise Maybe by the time you get back the difficulties will have been dls solved otherwise the schmse should be dropped in my opinion 4 o There is a great deal of unrest throughout the Project be- cause of uncertainty in the future For instance younger staff meabers are quite bitter that so many senior men are freely shopping j for post-war jobs while the younger men have less opportunity for so N doing » M This is almost reaching the proportions of a scandal My own frank opinion is that it is truly unrealistic to carry on as usual as the General wishes Could it be explained to him that the result of this policy will be a complete disintegration of the project in the course of the next few months not that I object to it but I feel that he ought to appreciate the situation UNCLASSIFIED uiiWLnow i iw 'AHJ vvF yl „ U - ' 5 My CLASSIRCATION CANCELLED p£R DOC REVIEW JAN 197« next feeling is that either one telj s him this finally and then relaxes expecting the inevitable or one makes a constructive effort to re-organize the Project on a semi-permanent basis assuming that the new authority will accept our recommendations This among other things would necessitate careful review of personnel requirements substantialL gviction of those who occupy necessary housing but are not needed for the reduced working force and reasonably firm assurance to those needed that they have a fair chance for post-war jobs here I am quite certain that Clausen is not the person to do tiliB Job I made a mild start in this direction by getting from the personnel department a list of civilian scientific employes and the housing distribution off them The Pereonnel Department promised a complete distribution of housing facilities but hasn't delivered it yet There is also a list of SED men participating in the Project and these documents are attached herewith for whatever use you may find for them 5 There has been a great many unimportant events of substantiaHxpersonal character De Hoffman kicked up a terrible fuss about the threat of his induction into the Army but quieted down without any action being taken by me Creutz asked for a wide extent clearance for visits by him to Chicago and Oak Ridge These were vetoed by Captain Jones with Bacher s concurrence who wrote a limited clearance I understood later from Jones that Creutz was making a great deal of fuss at Chicago because the limitations did not permit him to visit anybody he wished How this came out I do not know I approved in principle a visit by Reines to the Woodshole Laboratory on the urgent request of Peierls I can» t think of anything else to mention and am pretty sure that I forgot nothing of importance CLASSir' A 0 i CAuCElLEO PER DOC REVIEW JAN 1973 UNCLASSIFIED s